


Reunion

by SullenDragon



Category: The Sentinel
Genre: Established Relationship, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-14
Updated: 2018-07-14
Packaged: 2019-06-10 12:35:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 454
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15291645
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SullenDragon/pseuds/SullenDragon
Summary: It's been years since the last time Jim attended his mother's family's reunion. This year is different.





	Reunion

To the average observer, Jim would have seemed perfectly at ease amid the throng of his relatives. He laughed and joked with cousins, hugged aunts and let them fuss over his perfectly-folded collar. He’d slung his leather jacket across the back of a chair a few seats down from Steven’s, and Blair was feeling pretty good about knowing at least one reunion attendee.

  
The family reunion wasn’t Jim’s idea of a good time, though, and Blair knew it. Grace Ellison’s family was friendly and down-to-earth, but Blair had been with Jim all day. He’d seen him rummage through the closet, come out with three different shirts in almost the exact same shade of dark blue, and then try on and reject each one.

  
He’d ended with a pair of brand-new, bought-in-a-panic, dark-wash jeans and a long-sleeved green button-up with the sleeves rolled up to his elbows, but Blair didn’t think the pretty image was worth the stress that had gone into it. Jim had sat in the truck for ten minutes before they’d entered the venue for the reunion. He hadn’t done anything so obvious as check his watch or, surprise surprise, talk to Blair about his nerves, but he’d rolled up his sleeves and then pulled them back down, picked up his jacket and then thrown it back behind the seat.

  
He’d never once touched his ring. It remained where Blair had put it nearly a year ago, on the ring finger of his left hand.

  
Blair was wearing his own ring, even though he knew well enough that Jim’s family knew him as straight and single. Blair’d spent a while with his jacket draped over his hand, then switched that up to carry a napkin.

  
“Found you a lady? Again?” an older man asked Jim in a booming voice, slapping him hard across the back. Jim didn’t flinch, and Blair wondered if that was just his typical stoicism or if he’d dialed the pain down.

  
“Uncle Marty. Nope, no lady.” Jim turned away from the old man’s somewhat befuddled expression and picked back up with a cousin Irene, who flew crop dusters in Oregon, but not before he turned toward Blair with a wink. Steven had stopped talking, noticing Blair’s distraction, and turned to watch along with Blair as Uncle Marty looked from Jim to Blair and back again. His face screwed up and turned purple, and he hustled away like he was on fire.  
Jim and Irene came and settled next to Blair and Steven, with Irene’s youngest trailing at her belt loop like an adorable keychain.

  
Steven grinned like a kid and offered Jim a high-five. Jim tugged on Blair’s ponytail, and Blair stopped trying to hide his left hand.

**Author's Note:**

> Word counts this up at 498 words. I could have kept some words!


End file.
